If you go to Shanghai, there is a place that you must go to, called 76 Xingye Road.
You may not be very familiar with this place, but if you mention the building on it, the memorial hall of the first national congress of the Chinese Communist Party, you may suddenly realize.
In 1921, the first proletarian party in China was born here, and the first congress of the Communist Party of China was also held here.
However, since the 1950s, for the next half century, the memorial hall of the First Congress of the Communist Party of China has been pursuing a mystery.
Originally, when the CCP held a major meeting that year, there were 15 attendees, but now only 14 people's photos and biographies have been found, while the fifteenth person seems to have disappeared without any news.
Although several searches have yielded no results, the Party Central Committee has never given up.
Because this is a respect for the integrity of the party's history.
So where did the fifteenth person of the "big one" go? Why did it take half a century to find him?
(1) Vague information
Little is known about this fifteenth man.
But one thing is certain, his name is Nikolsky.
In July 1921, the first national congress of the Communist Party of China opened in Shanghai, and a total of 15 delegates attended the congress, including 13 Chinese and two foreigners, Marin and Nikolsky.
The information on Maring, who was from the Netherlands and whose original name was Hendricks Sneevlett, was easy to find. At that time, he was an official representative of the Communist International, personally recommended by Lenin, to come to China to help the Party Central Committee establish a party organization.
In the early days of the founding of the Party, he brought advanced experience and knowledge to the Party Central Committee, and if it were not for him, it might have taken a long time for us to build the Party.
Therefore, Marin has played a very positive role in the establishment of our party.
But this Nikolsky, when later generations checked the data, found that there were few records. It stands to reason that Nikolsky, together with Marin, as a representative of the Communist International, witnessed the founding of the Party, and his status should never be low.
The only record in history is that a man named Vyshinsky came to China in April 1920 as a member of the Russian Communist Party and an emissary of the Communist International, a year before the founding of the Party.
During Vysensky's stay in China, he helped our party set up the Shanghai Communist Group, and in early 1921, when Vysensky left office and returned to China, it was Nikolsky who succeeded him.
Nikolsky was able to take over such an important position, and he was not a nobody.
But for a long time, he was like a mystery, hidden in the corners of history.
Since the 1950s, a large number of scholars have looked up and studied this last person who participated in the "Great Congress", but not only did many party history researchers find nothing, but the descriptions of him in various books and periodicals of that year were also vague.
In particular, there has never been a final judgment on Nikolsky's origins, identity, and whereabouts. Some say that Nikolsky was sent by the Red Workers' International and was Marin's assistant, while others say that he came to China on behalf of the Comintern.
Anyway, there are many opinions, and there is no consensus.
Therefore, the people put the center of their collection on the texts, manuscripts, and memoirs of our Party deputies who attended the "First Congress" at the same time, to see if they could come up with any useful information.
At that time, a total of 13 delegates attended the First National Congress of the Communist Party of China.
They were Li Da and Li Hanjun of the Shanghai group, Dong Biwu and Chen Tanqiu of the Wuhan group, Mao Zedong and He Shuheng of the Changsha group, and Wang Gemei and Deng Enming of the Jinan group, as well as Zhang Guotao (tāo) and Liu Renjing of the final Beijing group, Chen Gongbo of the Guangzhou group, and Zhou Fohai of the Group in Japan.
At that time, the most famous Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu did not attend the conference because they could not get rid of their work in Beijing and Guangzhou.
They appointed Bao Hui, a monk from the Wuhan group, to participate on their behalf.
Of course, there was also Marin from the Comintern, and his manuscript was the key to the search for verification, because he and Nikolsky were both from the same place and had a close relationship.
After a careful search by the crowd, something was found.
Some deputies recalled that at a major meeting of the Communist Party of China, Nikolsky gave a speech about the establishment of the Communist International, the work and tasks of the Red Workers' International and the situation after the Russian Revolution (the Red Workers' International, also known as the "Red Trade Union International", was organized by the international union of trade unions with the participation of revolutionary trade unions of various countries).
Finally, at the end of the "Great Congress", Nikolsky proposed to send a telegram to the Comintern informing them of the course of the Congress and its outcome.
Some of them also wrote in their memories that when the two representatives of the Communist International came to Shanghai, he had seen the appearance of the two from a distance, the representative named Nikolsky, who did not speak much, was honest and generous, and should be the status of an assistant.
According to Bao Huisheng, "Nikolsky was a worker, spoke very slowly, and his voice was low. ”
Because all the formalities for their arrival in Moscow were handled by Nikolsky.
At that time, most people had the impression of the Russian, although he did not speak much and behaved very peacefully, but he was very delicate and experienced in dealing with such things.
After a rough collection, people have a rough impression of this Nikolsky.
The Russian, Marin's assistant, from the Comintern, spoke slowly and methodically, and had an honest and generous personality.
But Nikolsky's origins, whereabouts, and other issues remain unknown.
However, this is always the case with historical research, and it is always easier to overthrow than to prove.
(2) Continuous discovery
It wasn't until 1986 that things reversed again.
An extremely valuable personal archive was found in the Netherlands, which indicates that its owner was named Sneevlit.
And the reason why it is very precious is that Sneevlitt is Marin's original name, as mentioned before, he is one of the two foreigners who attended the "big one" and is close to Nikolsky.
It was in this archive that some of Nikolsky's information was learned.
The second reason the archive is precious is because it contains Marin's autograph.
The manuscript reveals that in June 1921, the secretary of the Comintern sent Nikolsky to shanghai to work, and he also arrived at the same time.
His words undoubtedly revealed that his "position" in the Communist International was inferior to that of Nikolsky.
Later, Marin said that while he and Nikolsky were in Shanghai, he helped Nikolsky carry out the tasks assigned by the Comintern, but he never worked independently, and he had to consult with Nikolsky on everything, in order to avoid organizational confusion, according to Marin.
Another point mentioned in the manuscript is that Comrade Nikolsky had received instructions from the Comintern that he must be present in party meetings, but the communist comrades in Shanghai at that time did not agree to this because they did not want to form a surveillance relationship with the Comintern.
And this file, as well as Marin's manuscript, has been identified and studied to collect evidence, and finally proved that this precious evidence is indeed true.
Judging from the contents of Marin's manuscript, it can be clearly inferred that Marin was Nikolsky's assistant when he rushed to China.
Moreover, Nikolsky was not only a representative of the Red Workers' International, but also an important figure sent by the Far East Secretariat of the Comintern to help the Shanghai Communist Group establish our Party.
So this deviates from our assertion at the time.
And everyone wondered why one of the biggest participants in the CCP recalled thinking that Nikolsky was Marin's assistant.
Based on Marin's information and the history of the time, the crowd deduced the following.
First, when Marin and Nikolsky arrived in Shanghai, Marin was 38 years old, and Nikolsky was still extremely young, coupled with his little speech and honest appearance, which caused this misunderstanding - the young Nikolsky must have been Marin's assistant.
Secondly, according to the data, Nikolsky, in addition to his mother tongue Russian, only speaks a little English, and it is difficult to talk with our party members, but Marin is proficient in English, German, and speaks a little Russian, and some people in our party at that time were also proficient in English, so every time Marin spoke at the meeting, and Nikolsky rarely spoke.
Although Marin's relationship with Nikolsky was clarified, the rest of the clues still did not allow Nikolsky's character to surface.
Just at this time, a secretary of the CPSU Central Committee visited China at the invitation of the CPC Central Committee.
And our research scholars feel that this is a perfect opportunity, since Nikolsky is a Russian, then there will certainly be clues in his own country, perhaps there will be a historical record of his time in China.
So the people wrote to the secretary of the CPSU Central Committee and asked him to help investigate.
And the secretary readily agreed.
After returning to China, the secretary issued a task to the Marxist-Leninist Research Institute of the CPSU Central Committee - to find the biographical materials and photographs of Nikolsky, a major participant in the CCP.
At this time, a researcher named Kartunova of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Far Eastern Research Institute, took over the job.
Kartunova was a well-known Chinese pedagogue who devoted her life to the study of the history of Soviet (Russian) relations and the history of the Chinese Communist Party.
The reason why she took on this task is because she has an indissoluble relationship with China for a long time.
When she was in college, she began to learn Chinese, and before and after the founding of New China, she came to China many times as a Chinese translator for the Central Committee of the CpSU. Not only that, she has worked with many senior CCP leaders.
For example, in June 1949, Vice Chairman Liu Shaoqi led a delegation of the CPC Central Committee to visit the Soviet Union, and Kartunova had intersected with Liu Shaoqi at that time, and the two had a good conversation.
On the occasion of parting, Liu Shaoqi said to her:
"Comrade Kartunova, you must come to China. When we have completely won the victory of the revolution, come! ”
After that, Kartunova also came to the appointment.
In 1954, at the invitation of the Chinese side, Kartunova visited China with a Soviet youth delegation and participated in the commemoration of the 35th anniversary of the May Fourth Movement.
……
So when the Marxist-Leninist Research Institute of the CPSU Central Committee was given the task of finding the biographical materials and photographs of Nikolsky, a major participant in the CCP.
She didn't hesitate to stand up.
She first found some basic materials about Nikolsky in the Central Party Affairs Archive of the Marxist-Leninist Academy, and then after she sorted it out, she published "A Great Participant in the Forgotten CCP" in the Soviet magazine "The Far East Question".
At the end of the article, she hopes that Nikolsky's relatives and relevant historians will be able to provide relevant information and materials.
However, although she has undergone many investigations and long-term efforts, she has not made a major breakthrough.
The search for Nikolsky was also shelved for a while.
However, in 2006, there was finally a major discovery.
It turned out that the Central Archives of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, after several twists and turns, finally found Nikolsky's archival materials.
And Nikolsky's life experience has also been completely revealed.
According to the archives, Nikolsky was a soldier named Vladimir Niejman Abramovich, born in 1889, and became a member of the Russian Communist Party (Brazzaville) in 1921.
Nikolsky was born on 10 February 1889 to a small family of citizens in the village of Chitkan in the Barguzin region, and reached the third grade at a school in Chita.
For four years, from 1912 to 1916, Nikolsky worked as a clerk in a private shop in Chita and later worked for a time at the Sbelg station on the Amur River (Heilongjiang) section of the Trans-Siberian Railway.
A year later, the October Revolution broke out in Russia, and it was at this time that Nikolsky was forcibly recruited by the Tsarist government and began his military career.
But soon Nikolsky broke away from the army and went into exile in Chita, Vladivostok, and other places, working as a clerk in a private trading company.
Nikolsky, who thought he could get out of the war once and for all, did not expect that in 1918 he was forcibly recruited into the White Guards (a counter-revolutionary armed group against soviet power during the Period of the Russian Civil War and foreign armed intervention).
However, Nikolsky soon withdrew from the White Guard and joined the People's Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republics. He later became a member of the Communist Party of Russia (Brazzaville) and was in charge of military intelligence at the Comintern.
After that, as everyone knows, Nikolsky, who performed well, was sent to Shanghai, China, by the Far East Secretariat of the Comintern in his many capacities, including the staff of the Secretariat of the Far East Bureau of the Comintern, the representative of the Red Workers' International, and the Soviet and Russian intelligence personnel.
Together with Marin, he helped the Communist Party build the Communist Party, participated in the First National Congress of the Communist Party of China, and guided the elections of the Communist Party of China.
And Nikolsky seems to be more important than everyone thinks.
According to the instructions of the Comintern, Nikolsky had to attend the various meetings of the Communist Party of China, and one of the reasons why Nikolsky was extremely important was because he was responsible for funding the staff of the Comintern in China and other Soviet Communists, that is, he actually held "financial power" at that time.
And his experience after leaving China is also mentioned in the archives.
After returning to China, Nikolsky continued to work in the intelligence services of the Soviet Union and counterintelligence for a long time.
But in February 1938, Nikolsky, who had already served as a lieutenant in the Soviet state security apparatus, was arrested by the NKVD of the USSR for "espionage and sabotage."
And from history, we can see that he was actually wronged.
But the torrent of history at that time did not give him a chance to explain. Soon, Nikolsky, who was arrested, was executed by firing squad in Khabarovsk at the age of 49.
And Nikolsky didn't get into the snow until more than a decade later.
On November 8, 1956, according to the resolution of the military tribunal of the Supreme Court of the USSR, Nikolsky was acquitted and restored to his reputation.
At this point, the fifteenth person who participated in the ccp's congress, Nikolsky, his life was finally filled in the blank.
And the final step is still to be taken before the whole incident is to find Nikolsky's picture.
(3) Nikolsky's last "secret"
In fact, we have long found Nikolsky's photographs, but we can't get them.
It turned out that Kartunova, when she found Nikolsky's files, accidentally found a photo of Nikolsky in prison in the Central Archives of the Russian Federal Security Service, the Russian State Archives of Social and Political History, and the Archives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
When she asked if she could provide the photo to China, she was rejected by the authorities.
Although the photo was not obtained, Kartunova still did not give up.
Perhaps it was her enthusiasm that caught the attention of many Russian scholars, including Alexei Buyakov, who was a professor of history at the Russian Far Eastern State University.
He had long been intrigued by the matter, and when he learned that Nikolsky's information had been largely found, leaving only one photograph, he felt very sorry.
In order to strengthen his understanding of this matter, he also made a special trip to Shanghai and visited the memorial hall of the First Congress of the Communist Party of China.
After he returned home, he immediately threw himself into the search for Nikolsky's photographs.
He first wrote a letter of inquiry to the State Archives, looking up Nikolsky's party registration card to see if he could find useful information.
But he was disappointed to find that the state archives did not keep Nikolsky's party registration card.
He then received a reply from the Ministry of Security of the Russian Federation, saying that there might be a clue in the Joint Archives of the Omsk Region.
Buyakov read the reply and went to the Omsk region to try it out and see if there was anything to be gained.
But unexpectedly, this trip actually made a major discovery.
The Joint Archives of the Omsk Region actually contains Nikolsky's personnel file, which is as many as forty or fifty pages, and more importantly, a photograph of Nikolsky is clearly posted on the resume.
Buyakov was so excited that, after asking permission from the management, he took the picture with his camera.
On June 29, 2007, Buyakov, who got the photo, immediately went to China, and on June 29, 2007, he came to Buyakov in Shanghai with the tour group again, and solemnly presented Nikolsky's enlarged remake of the photo to the memorial hall of the First Congress of the Communist Party of China.
In order to prove the authenticity of the material, he gave the memorial the article that had been searched for Nejman's photograph, as well as a cover photo of Nikolsky's personnel file, and a photo of Nikolsky's resume with a photograph of himself.
At about the same time, Professor Darsi Dawa, a well-known scholar of the history of the Communist International, also came to the memorial hall of the First Congress of the Communist Party of China.
He also brought two photographs of Nikolsky.
Undoubtedly, Darcy Dawa was also one of the scholars attracted by this matter.
Long ago, he went to Russia for several consecutive years, consulting a large number of relevant materials in several archives and museums.
According to him, the photographs were accidentally found by his friend La Bo Kurs in a professional archive in the Russian Oblast of Omsk.
He just told his friend about it, he didn't expect that his friend happened to have a relationship in the Russian Omsk Oblast Archives, and he was able to consult some information, and his friend just held the attitude of trying, and went to try it, but he didn't expect to find Nikolsky's photo.
The memorial made a detailed comparison of these Nikolsky photos, especially in the two groups of photos, one of which was taken in the 1930s, exactly the same.
The other is even more precious, it was taken in the 1920s.
Because this photo is closer to the time of the CCP, this photo has become the photo of Nikolsky hanging in a large exhibition hall of the CCP.
On September 24, 2007, the People's Daily published an article entitled "Important Discoveries in the History of the Founding of the Communist Party of China - Unveiling the Veil of a Great "Fifteenth Man"", which showed the entire tortuous process of searching for the fifteenth person of the "Great" to the public in the form of words, and this was also the first time in history that Nikolsky's photo was publicly found.
Since the 1921 Congress of the Communist Party of China, from the 1950s to 2007, the last person, spanning half a century, was finally found...
On the eve of the National Day, Nikolsky's portrait was hung on the wall of the third exhibition hall of the Memorial Hall of the First National Congress of the Communist Party of China.
The photo shows Nikolsky dressed in a Soviet Red Army era uniform, three-dimensional facial features, high forehead horns, and a very solemn look.
And the eyes of God, which seem to have traveled through decades of time and space, are giving the viewer the attention of history.
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